Finding a place in research
Three years ago, I knew nothing about Toni Stone or the Negro League. I didn’t know a thing about baseball’s racial history, with the exception being a vague familiarity with the legacy of Jackie Robinson, the African-American player who broke the major leagues’ color barrier. I certainly didn’t know about gender in baseball. But a year later, I held in my hands a copy of “Curveball: the Remarkable Story of Toni Stone, the First Woman to Play Baseball in the Negro League.” The author, Martha Ackmann, a former Augustus Anson Whitney Scholar in non-fiction at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, was my research mentor in what would become one of my most valuable experiences at Harvard. Since my freshman year, I have worked at Radcliffe, researching alongside visiting fellows on a slew of projects. I am always impressed by their range, the scope of which is revealed during an annual celebratory...